A Flight Management System (FMS) may allow the pilot or crew of an aircraft to define a search pattern or other predetermined flight pattern, by manually entering points into the FMS. Each manually entered point would correspond to a particular latitude and longitude, and the set of points would define an impromptu path. However, this process is cumbersome and inefficient. Furthermore, the manual definition of a search path or pattern may involve an imprecise selection of points that fails to account for changing conditions (e.g., difficult terrain combined with degraded visual environment) that may variably affect the pilot's visual search ability as well as enhanced vision systems that may augment a visual search by sensing outside the visible spectral band.